Galeria Skala / 31.03.2023-21.04.2023 / Poznań, Św. Marcin 49a / The gallery is OPEN MONDAY TO MONDAY, from 1:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m..
We also invite you to the Scale Gallery for a curatorial tour and meeting with the authors on Thursday (20.04.) at 6 pm.
Exhibition Five impure tasks consists of five independent artistic productions that address the diverse contexts of the pictorial communication that constantly accompanies us. The author and the authors experiment with media that form the basis of our daily interactions with the world (photography, film, network images, digitally generated images, virtual reality).
The participant and the participants in the exhibition have something else in common - they are people involved in the structures of academic life, working in a world of inconsistent criteria relating to their own artistic work, their role as a teacher and a university functionary. Such a position, usually taken for granted, raises a number of questions and doubts. How does it affect the nature of creative pursuits?
The title of the exhibition refers to the film by Lars von Trier. Five foul plays (2003), in which the protagonist, famous documentary filmmaker Jørgen Leth says: I am an observer, not a participant. The experience of the aforementioned inconsistent criteria within which we function in today's social context makes the distinction in the Leth declaration worth considering. It seems impossible to implement today. But is this certainly the case? What then is the role of the artist in a reality saturated with contradictions and opaque rules? The realizations presented at the exhibition address the above question, although none of them does so in a programmatic way, and each proposes a different, incoherent(!) answer.
Agnieszka Antkowiak (b. 1990) - graduate of photography at the University of Arts in Poznan (2017)
and cultural studies at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (2014). Currently a student of Art and
Performance Research Studies spec. Artistic Research at the University of Amsterdam. Since 2017, assistant
At the Studio of Photography in Contexts at UAP. Co-founder (with Anastasia Pataridze and Marta Szypulska) of the following.
ATM collective (2018).
Slawomir Decyk (born 1968) - works in photography in the broadest sense. The reflective attitude of his activities
of creative features confronting forgotten or overlooked imaging methods with current practice
experiencing the medium, defining the boundary areas of photography (in particular those defined as
post-media), seeking new means of expression and tools to transcend one's imagination.
He is the co-inventor of the solarigraphy technique and the author of a unique series of Cyclographics. Since 2020, he has been running the Studio
Experimental Photography at the University of Arts in Poznan. He has participated in more than 70 exhibitions
in Poland and abroad, including the UK, Australia, China, Spain, Canada, Germany,
Slovakia.
Konrad Kuzyszyn (born 1961) - works in photography, video, hybrids of contemporary electronic media
and sculptural installations. Since 1993, he has worked in the Photography and Video Imaging Studio of the Academy of Art and Design.
Wladyslaw Strzeminski Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz. From 2001-2011 he created and headed the Studio of
Multimedia at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz. From 2007-2012, he headed the Digital Creation Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow.
He currently heads the Image Transformation Studio at the University of Arts in Poznan. Scholarship recipient
Land of North Rhine-Westphalia (1998) and Minister of Culture and Art (2001). Author of dozens of solo exhibitions
and participant in more than a hundred collective ones.
Mateusz Sadowski (born 1984) - author of animated films, photographs, objects and installations. Graduate of the Academy of
Fine Arts in Poznan, where he studied photography (2007), intermedia (2010) and graduated from the Interdisciplinary
Doctoral Studies (2018). Winner of the 2010 Samsung Art Master competition. Scholarship holder of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (Young Poland,
2012). Winner of the Chris Frayne Award for Best Animated Film at the 2016 Ann Arbor Film Festival, he is currently
Lecturer at the University of Arts in Poznań. He cooperates with Stereo Gallery.
Piotr Wolynski (b. 1959) - visual artist, has been working with photography in the field of art since the late 1970s. He studied
Philosophy and Cultural Studies at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. In addition to his activities
art writes texts on art and initiates and organizes exhibitions and other artistic ventures. Since 1985
year associated with the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań (now the University of Arts in Poznań);
Initially as an assistant in Prof. Stefan Wojnecki's studio, he has been running his own studio since the 1990s. In the years
1994-2004 he led the Photography Studio at the Art Institute of the University of Zielona Gora. In 2002-
2016 Head of the Department of Photography at UAP. Author of more than a dozen solo exhibitions and participant in dozens of
collective.
Photo documentation of the exhibition - Zakhar Sherstobitov
DIVISIBILITY OF ATTENTION
Life, as we know it, is something
absolutely chronic.
He is not quite this or that.
They know this, which is why they live
and work in the shadow of a tame institution.
There is also something to it
In a certain theoretical layer: shadow,
which they throw, always comes back to them
greater, multiplied by
the actions of others like them, as if
through the ajar door of the default
The lights of the organization itself. Intuitive
like morning, a cloud is gathering
systematized knowledge. And yet
sometimes a moment of reflection hits as well
dating from even earlier
The production stage of solar deviations,
which still says little about
the actual distance that the mind
tries to overcome in the way of acceptance
their own limitations: these non-linear
equations, free head turns
suspended inside the simulation
constructed from registered
Lights. Well, and the one coming from somewhere
From outside the frame, a phenomenal voice that
repeats, like elaborate arias,
That all documents confirm
After all, the fall of the painting itself. The fall of
document-for-self. Because
Currently, we are only illustrated by facts that have lost
already nature, dynamism and vigor prevailing
in the past, have been stripped of the aspect of
attachments to definitions: reality
replaced by an art form is increasingly
On extensive plans, viewpoints,
than definitions, while facing
lack of definition of art itself, we already have
Rather, it's just an afterthought, a persuasion,
leads scattered within convenient
arguments for us. Therefore, instead of
clouds we are seeing more and more filters,
filters on filters, next levels
separating us from the output
experience. Although it is not quite so
bad with all this medium of lack
With all its complex ambiguity,
However, it is still a kind of game with the observer,
who is so addicted to
From its own place in time. And everything,
first of all, it exists in its
time. However, the observer always
remains invisible. Because
it is you who are the observer
(POV.jpg) - the rest is a priori
ruined for the others. Being
therefore always means a certain
experiment in being visible
As far as others can see us.
After years of similar insights
they reach the shore of the devastating
complications. Media, screens, more
dispersion formats. All
technologies recall first
magic until they are no longer something else.
However, photography is not magic. It is not
greater mystery than Syrian asphalt
with its almost unreadable crack
chemical day, when someone
just looked out of the studio window
into the courtyard, wondering
Over random shadow structuring,
textures, the shade of a sandy path
in the depth of the frame, the wandering of the clouds
following the contour of a kind of distorted
landscape. On the other hand
The future is already embracing the whole
with eyes printed
In 3D. At certain times
turns his head slightly and looks at
research, primarily to himself.
Similar automatics of our current
of being are still
reproduced (on increasingly
machinic scale) of desire
control over the flow of the same-w-
time for themselves. It's a strenuous pursuit,
so that from the scattered information
light reaching us
(in real time)
construct their own image.
In a similar vein
institutions were created. But their light
is something else, already more
formal coercion, discipline
a certain process: duration in the field
regulated tasks, when
any representations, still
plugged into new media, say
us a lot, more and more about unresolved
issues, as if moving
on a twisted escalator
accelerating doubts all the time,
which actually never give us
Enough time to take a thoughtful look at the
own basis, structure, and ultimately
Are just a kind of core, a skeleton,
construction based on matrices of assumptions
and seasonal plans, a window reaching
sometimes maximum desktop
or some more external
towards someone's desires and predictions
framework. And when the cascades of time pile up
come on like a violent light in your eyes
To an outside observer - life,
Something always bigger, from outside the frame,
comes in the form of surplus
information.
definitively unattainable
Marcin Cherkasov - text accompanying the exhibition Five impure tasks